Lets get this party started

Ariana’s Perspective: A few days before we met, I had officially sworn off dating. I had just endured the last of a long string of terrible dates — this one at a diner where the guy ordered a tuna melt (extra tuna!), gossiped about people I knew, and then asked me to pay. As if that wasn’t enough, he later sent me a 15-minute voice memo of himself performing a monologue from a movie (Toni Colette's monologue from "Hereditary," but badly). Yep. Dating was over for the foreseeable future. The very next day, while volunteering at a COVID-19 vaccine clinic, I got a notification that Rob had extended a match on Bumble. I thought he was cute — especially his smile — but I wasn’t sure what to say. Luckily, Bumble had a “Say Hi” feature, which I hoped would send him a simple hello. Instead, it sent him a gif of a dancing llama… forcing me to quickly explain that I wasn’t a weirdo and that the app had set me up. The rest, as they say, is history — filled with Hudson Taco dates, dancing in the kitchen, and lots of meaningful conversations. Rob's Perspective: In May 2021, we met the modern way — on Bumble — just seconds before our match was about to expire. With heroic timing (and my very last bit of free Bumble currency), I extended the match… and minutes later received a GIF of a dancing llama, followed by a panicked message explaining the app told her to say hi and she had no idea it would be quite that ridiculous. Somehow, the llama worked. We planned to meet at Hudson Taco — “one of the best places around” — and when I got there, I saw a woman sitting alone on a bench and immediately started bargaining with the universe: please don’t let that be her. I was already rehearsing how to politely stay for one taco and fake a phone call. Then I looked up and saw Ariana walking down the street toward me — and I’ve never been so relieved in my life. Hudson Taco greeted us with a two-hour wait, so we pivoted to the neighboring steakhouse instead — which we now call fate. What was supposed to be a quick first date turned into hours of talking and laughing, and from the very beginning I knew there was something different about her. Five years later, I’m still grateful for good timing, great steak, and one very enthusiastic llama.